far below the way above,daddy's princess splits the past, present now in anotherplace. She chews her nails,paints them silver to coverthe scars. Wears a jagged

smile slapped on by secrethands that itches her dreamswhile she sleeps, sips slow ginfrom coke cans and strips ata juke joint on sixty-third topay the rent, pay the piper.

And after, she walks home,counting stars in the way above,flirting with the man in the moon.

II.

Part-Time Feeds The Kitty

She racks nine-ballmornings at Bobby's Blue Tip;just another strip bar,just another street-current pit in a series of stopsand she's got a loft,top of the stairs,over the stage- where she shakes tit nights on the ten to four;shimmies for the jimmiesin business suits-they buy rounds in applause,light cigarettes and checktheir reflections on the backs of zipposalways the same faces,always the same song-and in the morningshe'll rack balls,while the old men match each other drink for shot;they move lips that never speak,their silence reminds her of home.

III.

Full-Time Pays The Rent

The graveyard shift rocksat Master Jack's Porno Emporium,a blocked concrete coffin thatbleeds florescent sun throughcracks in the green glass front.Tongues of it lick the sidewalk,cold trails that shine them in after dark settles.

Vacuous vampires on a senselesssearch for something to suckle,they flutter the aisles; aimless batswith track marks and dirty nailsthat chitter against the shelves.Freaks and loners, fags and heads,even the worn whores with theirnobody's businessmen- they all see the light and remember warmth.

A blue-black babe with a tit tagthat reads JANE in red letters worksthe cash box. She has a vicious pinkscar that puckers her face from eyebrow to chin. It dances when she talks, a lurid hoochie-coochie in sync with her words. But she plays those suckers like a sideshow susie,

selling hard anal to dykes, straight to the packers and anything to the Priestwho left his collar in the vestry.They stare at the floor while she ringsthem out, scared to look up and seethe stunner she must have been beforesomebody pulled the sharp end of meanpast her smile.

When she hands me my change,the scar starts to dance, a slow strip across a scarred counter. It always follows me home, waltzing with my silhouette through the streets.

and now the scourge begins-cold fingers bury themselves, beaks of carrion birds at a living thing,gaining strength on what's left behind.Lather builds thick; gatherswhere skin becomes savage, secret eater of the dead.

Memory hangs heavy,falls to spatter on broken tile, spat wads of rage and reverence. Jane shifts ruined eyes over a dark shoulder,black stare of a baleful goddess.The scar that splits her face burns,spills fire across an ancient altar-ignites the feast of continuance.

Not surprisingly, I continue to come here expecting to be amazed and then leave again throbbing with the heavy pulse of your writing. I get the same rush from your words that I sought daily, before rehab . . . and there’s something about your pain that’s addictive. I don’t know what’s coursing through your veins, but your words are laden with it in lethal proportions and I’m gloriously poisoned every time I read something new. Thank you.

GRIND IT UP AND SPIT IT OUT, THEY SAID

Eat Your Words

"I know we're not saints or virgins or lunatics; we know all the lust and lavatory jokes, and most of the dirty people; we can catch buses and count our change and cross the roads and talk real sentences. But our innocence goes awfully deep, and our discreditable secret is that we don't know anything at all, and our horrid inner secret is that we don't care that we don't."— Dylan Thomas